In July 2004 English Heritage was alerted to the forthcoming sale by auction of 47 photographic prints by Philip Henry Delamotte entitled The Crystal Palace at Sydenham. This set, unique in Britain, was purchased with the aid of the Crystal Palace Foundatin and the the London Development Agency. These images, published here for the first time, are the first set to show one of the most important buildings in England a the height of its fame in the late 1850s. All 47 images are reproduced in this book, together with beautiful colour and black-and-white views that tell the story of this amazing building, truly a Victorian pleasure dome.